Britain's forests are not yet out of the woods, despite yesterday's seductively reassuring consultation paper on their future. This asks the public whether it agrees with a series of banal statements: among them should ministers protect nationally important landscapes, and should charities be allowed to care for trees? The answers, of course, are yes – but yesterday's proposals for the Forestry Commission's future fall well short of guaranteeing that its good work will continue.

The consultation paper is not as terrifying as some had feared. It rejects selling all commission land to the private sector, and proposes that the commission keeps its present role overseeing the country's forests, whoever owns them. There is no plan for a chainsaw massacre of England's ancient oaks. But nor, among its options, is there a proposal for leaving the commission unchanged on the grounds that, however flawed, it does quite a few things well. The government is determined that the state ceases to own and run forests directly – an approach shaped by ideology and financial circumstance before practical understanding.

It is true that the commission has caused much environmental damage in the past – replacing ancient deciduous woods with commercial conifers – and that many other woods, not in state hands, are well run. It is also sensible to identify plantations of little environmental or cultural value, and consider selling them. This process was already under way when Labour were in power, and is accelerating: the government is already selling 15% of the commission's estate, the maximum allowed under present legislation. But even this land gives visitors pleasure, and there is no certainty that so-called higher access rights, for people such as bikers and horse riders, will be protected.

Much more important is the fate of the commission's current and former ancient woodlands. The government proposes giving most of the former to charities. Some groups, such as the National Trust and the Woodland Trust, will improve them. But without the commission's commercial forestry it is unclear how bills will be met. The consultation is silent, too, on the need to preserve programmes to replant former ancient woodlands, now under conifer, with broadleaf trees.

Nor is it obvious how community groups are supposed to fund the purchase of other – smaller – commercially valuable woods, many of which are up for sale under the existing disposal plan.

The government is right that it matters more how woods are run than who owns them. But there is a link. Before it is broken, we should understand the consequences.